German People's Party

The German People's Party (DVP) was a national liberal political party in Weimar Republic-era Germany that was active from 15 December 1918 to 4 July 1933. The center and right factions of the National Liberal Party of Germany merged with two conservative parties to form the DVP, which became one of the two largest liberal parties in Weimar-era Germany, the other being the left-liberal German Democratic Party. The party represented the interests of the great German industrialists, and its platform stressed Christian family values, secular education, lower tariffs, opposition to welfare spending and agrarian subsidies, and hostility to social democracy and communism. The party only gradually came to support the Weimar Republic, and it veered sharply to the right after the death of its greatest leader, Gustav Stresemann, in 1929. The party was banned by the Nazis in 1933.